My regularly readers and Instagram followers will know that I am a big Disney fan! So, when our little boy, Joseph, asked for a Cars theme for his 3rd birthday party I was happy to oblige!
I love a good themed party and Joseph has been lucky enough to have a Mickey Mouse and a Thomas the Tank Engine theme before. Having a theme can bring a cute touch to a party but it can also make things expensive! If like us you also have two parties, one for family and one for friends, that can add to the cost too!
So, I thought I'd share with you how we did our Cars themed birthday on a budget, twice!
First, I'll be honest with you and say I did start prepping a couple of months before. Doing this allows time for bargain hunting and getting crafty! I started by looking for ideas on Pinterest and had a flick around the internet for any special offers on partyware.
The latter meant I got the themed invites, tablecloth and party bags on special offer at Toys R Us, getting them for less than half price!
Next, I set about coming up with decorations, and again Pinterest was a great resource for this! I decided to go with bunting and to ensure all the pictures I used matched and were the same style I used Disney Wiki. It was time to get crafty!
Unfortunately my ribbon went missing so I had to use string instead to hang the bunting up and I was concerned it didn't look right but nobody commented and it didn't really matter.
I also put lots of balloons up around the rest of our conservatory and again I didn't buy the Cars ones and bought a packet from Poundland instead and pulled out the relevant colours. I also found some packs of orange cones in Poundland, which I placed around the room for a Cosy Cone element. I also bagged some inflatable road signs from eBay!
Next, I moved on to food and shopped around for the best possible deals. This included using sites like mysupermarket to check prices and discount and cashback apps like Shopmium and CheckoutSmart. Using these meant I was able to get a selection of drinks and sweet treats for next to nothing!
To add to the theme I decided to give each food a Cars themed name. These were really quirky and everyone commented on them! For the first party I used straws to place them but for the second time I used cocktail sticks. I made the signs using a Word document, creating text boxes and using the pictures I used for the bunting.
Now, for the cake! If you've ever flicked round the internet looking for themed birthday cakes you will no doubt have seen the large price tag that comes with them! At the time of Joseph's birthday back in May the new Cars movie was due to be released and we spotted a Lightning McQueen cake on the Asda and Tesco websites but they were never in stock online or in the stores! As much as we tried we couldn't get one and I was really disappointed! I crazily thought I had let Joseph down because of a cake!
I soon gave myself a stern talking to and instead bought a normal cake, ordered some ribbon from O Sew Emily, cleaned one of his many McQueens and placed it on top of the cake. Do you know what? Joseph love it to bits, telling everyone that Mumma had made him a ka-chow cake!
Now, what about entertainment!? As always we had the Disney tunes playing but unfortunately at the family party in rained on and off all afternoon. Now the party was mainly adults but after a little while people did get a bit restless so we had a round of musical statues! Even some of the grownups joined in but as usual Granny was soon disqualified for cheating!
On the day we had our friends round we got out every single garden toy we owned! We are also very lucky to have a mini bouncy castle that my brother gave us and this went down a storm with the kids! The party bags were also popular with the them. As I mentioned before I got the Cars themed bags in the sale. I filled them with sweets, bubbles, balls and notepads from Poundland and B&M.
When arranging a children's party it is easy to get caught up in the planning and the bid to make it perfect for your little one. Maybe you even want to impress friends and family members. I really hope that sharing our low budget and Disney themed party will help you plan for your little ones next birthday.
Above all of this though the most important thing is that your son or daughter has the best possible day. Will they remember or even notice if they had the most expensive crisps or the fanciest cake? Probably not, what they'll remember is being with their family and friends.
I know the parties I remember most vividly are ones I was surrounded by family, friends, fun and laughter.
Mummy Snowy Owl
xx
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